MODEL: 1971 to 1976 Ford Pinto and Mercury Bobcat. | RECALL YEAR: 1978 | THE PROBLEM: Penny pinching on Ford's part to introduce a compact affordable car to America resulted questionable engineering. In a rear-end collision, the Pinto's gas tanks would ruptured and often burst into flames. Ford was well aware of the problem, as an internal company memo showed, but decided that redesigning the fuel tank would end up being more expensive than paying settlements for injuries and deaths from resulting fires. Ford recalled more than one million Pintos (and its near-twin, the Mercury Bobcat) in 1978 for adjustments to gas tanks. And the company ended up paying out millions in claims from Pinto fires.
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MODEL: 1978 to 1983 Audi 5000| RECALL YEAR: 1982-1987 | THE PROBLEM: Unintential acceleration caused by wrongly positioned floor mats that could pin the accelerator pedal. In 1982, Audi started recalling its 5000 model cars and though the toal number was relatively small, the effects of the bad publicity was devastating to the automaker.Audi
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MODEL: 1991 to 2001 Ford Explorer | RECALL YEAR: 2001 | THE PROBLEM: The family-friendly Explorer, which was one of America's best-selling SUVs of the '90s, had a tendency to roll over in emergency-handling situations thanks, in part, to the Firestone tires the car came equipped with, which had tread separation problems. In 2001, more than 200 deaths were reported and attributed to the Firestone and Explorer combination, according to The Wall Street Journal.Ford
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MODEL: 1980 to 1982 GM X-Cars | RECALL YEAR: Various | THE PROBLEM: Owners of General Motors' cars of the '80s -- Buick Skylark, Chevrolet Citation, Oldsmobile Omega and Pontiac Phoenix -- complained that they spent more time at the mechanic than actually driving their cars. The problems with some of the models were many, including faulty fuel lines, coil springs in the suspension that would slip out of their seats, and steering gear that detached from its mounts. In 1980, the Chevrolet Citation was recalled nine times.
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MODEL: 1976 Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare | RECALL YEAR: 1976-1977 | THE PROBLEM: There were many, including engineering problems with the emissions control systems, the fuel systems and even defects in the seatbelt design. The 1976 versions of these two cars were recalled an incredible eight times by the U.S.'s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The recalls were for everything from the emissions control systems to fuel systems and seatbelt retractors. It was almost unfathomable how many screwups had been engineered into these two very ordinary cars.
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MODEL: 2010 Toyota Corolla | RECALL YEAR: 2009-2011 | THE PROBLEM: A gas pedal defect in the 2010 Corolla and other models (some 9 million cars in total) would cause them to stick in the down position while in full-throttle acceleration, leaving the driver powerless to stop. he defect led to 31 deaths and left Toyota spending millions over two years scrambling to clean up the mess.Toyota
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